


Five times Sherlock and Lestrade never met. Two: Waiting For Someone To Count Me In

by grassle



Series: Five times Sherlock and Lestrade never met [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:10:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassle/pseuds/grassle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disclaimer: I don't own these characters from the BBC's <i>Sherlock</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>“The symbol perfects itself by the accumulation of approximations. As such, it is comparable to a spiral, or rather, a solenoid, which each repetition brings closer to its target.”</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gilbert Durand, <i>L'Imagination symbolique</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Five times Sherlock and Lestrade never met. Two: Waiting For Someone To Count Me In

**Waiting For Someone To Count Me In**

_Make hoop, jump through it_. That was how he’d imagined the High Potential Development Scheme would be. He wasn’t naïve: he’d suspected it would be all about beaurocracy, hadn’t deluded himself it would give him even more of a chance to help people, the public, than he’d had during his Metropolitan Police Service probationer training. No; that chance would come when he’d been judged ready for the step up, and there was less PC Plodding.

How wrong he’d been. Lestrade, gathering his bits of paper together for his latest Promotion Development Review, wanted to give a wry chuckle at that simplistic assumption. If mocked up on a flow chart, it’d look more like, start at agree with assessor what hoop you’ll make, usually something nothing to do with day-to day-policing. Then move on to agree with assessor _how_ you’ll jump through it. Next, go on to write report on how far you did in fact jump the way you’d said you would. If you _didn_ ’t in fact jump the way you’d said you would, go in the opposite direction and describe how you adapted to requirements and jumped differently but _better_. Discuss same at review, agree on final mark, then scrap hoop and start again. And again.

He was ashamed of how cynical he felt about the process, of course he was. Twenty-four was too young to be so jaded. But he’d been at this for two years, just as he’d spent the previous two years first training at Hendon and then doing his new recruit training. Seemed a two-year limit was when novelty wore off for him. But, still, two years sticking to something was one more year than he’d managed at uni before jacking that in and joining up.

He booked a spare interview room and prepared to debate his individual career plan and development objectives. He’d left the door open and now saw Simmons knock and beckon Peters out of the room opposite.

“Guess who’s just come in!” Simmons could hardly hold it in.

“As long as it ain’t my ex, don’t mind.” Peters took the chance to light up, and now took a massive gulp of smoke, as if dragging the whole contents of the fag in in one lungful.

“Oh, you’ll like this.”

“Not a lot, but I’ll like it?”

God, the clichés and catchphrases. Enough to drive a bloke man.

“No. A lot. It’s the saucepan! _The_ kid! The one who thinks this is the frigging North Pole!”

“No!” Peters paused with his cigarette halfway to his gob. “Not the ‘Dear Santa’ kid?”

“In person.” Simmons’s face was alive with gleeful malice.

“What’s he like?”

“Oh, like Dickey Dave reckoned he’d be, real _Blue Peter_. Wants a badge, or something. Read a Ladybird book on policing and thinks he can have a jolly old go, innit.”

Lestrade shuffled some papers as loudly as they’d go and snapped the elastic bit on a file. Why, he wasn’t sure. Just didn’t like hearing all this. Peters glanced over and tipped his head back a bit in acknowledgement. Didn’t make any sign of sympathy to see Lestrade sitting waiting for his interview. He peered through the glass bit of the door he’d exited from and must have decided he’d be okay for another minute.

“Why’s he come in now?”

Simmons shrugged. He was so thickset, it made his whole upper body move in a solid block. “Suppose he thought his letters weren’t doing it.”

_Not the way you deal with them._ Least the poor bugger doesn’t know how much free entertainment he provides you lot with, can’t see you all taking the piss out of them, thought Lestrade. As their talk turned to how they should find out what the initial he signed with was for, why not get a quick pool going on it before they booted him out, Lestrade felt almost sad for them.

He didn’t feel the sense of solidarity and brotherhood he knew he should with his fellow officers, and they didn’t with him. It wasn’t just that not being here then, he’d missed the swimming competition death the letters were about. No; it was deeper, more that this wasn’t his home station. He hadn’t done his probo training here at this borough, had only come here to be Developed. Fast Tracked. Whatever you wanted to call it. And yeah, it had led to the unoriginal nick of Speedy. Strangely, his having dropped out of uni earned him a modicum of respect with the blokes here. Funny old world.

He caught Peters urging Simmons to give the saucepan a bash, get the lads in, let Dickey Dave and Deptford Dave have a dekko, when his assessor came in. He stood.

“Ready for me, Greg?” Vanessa swept to the table with her piles of papers and files, and Greg matched her bright, bland smile with a sickly grin of his own. It wasn’t a genuine smile by any means, not one that flashed his teeth, or put a light in his eyes, but Vanessa still responded to it, colouring slightly and ducking her head to shuffle her forms around and arrange her pens.

Lestrade wasn’t vain, just observant, and understood he was considered good-looking, tall and well-built as he was, and yeah, he’d made sure he bulked up a bit to look less, well, ‘pretty,’ especially after uni. He was aware of the effect his deep brown eyes, with optional naughty twinkle, and his long eyelashes and slight chin dimple had on people. If he wanted them too. And maybe he did, later, with Vanessa. Depended on how things went. Because he wasn’t satisfied with them as they were, all the stalling and being knocked back.

“Can we leave the door open? I’ve got nothing to hide, especially during the 360-degree feedback. There’s no air conditioning in here, you see.” This was one of the older rooms, designed to make suspects sweat, literally. She agreed, murmuring however about procedure and confidentially and privacy, and he was aware of whoever was in the room opposite leaving. He saw Peters moving off down the corridor.

“I don’t want to use the word anomaly.” Vanessa was twittering as usual.

“Then don’t.”

She gave a weak giggle. “But if you’d come in as a graduate, or if you’d finish your course, you’d be promoted to a senior rank in no time and…” He didn’t take up his cue. She sighed. “I mean, it’s not as if you have any difficulty with the academic requirements of the scheme, is it? I want to go over the results and what you’ve learnt from the courses and modules you’ve attended since we last met, of course…”

His turn to sigh. Of course she did.

“Well, at least you’re on the right track, the fast track, now!”

He must have looked as if he needed pepping up a bit.

“Let’s go on to the achievements and competences you’ve demonstrated with your last business and development objectives. Remember the slant should be on leadership from six months ago onwards…”

When he next looked out into the narrow corridor, Peters and the bigger of the Daves were walking into the room opposite, and the other Dave, Simmons and O’Neil were hanging about outside.

“So this is your report on your last round of operational and managerial action points, which, strictly speaking, you should have submitted prior to this assessment meeting?”

“Yeah, bit busy actually policing. Sorry.”

“Well, while I read and comment on your written report, could you please fill this in?”

Oh God, he’d just realised _Vanessa_ bloody rhymed with _assessor_. He didn’t want to laugh, though.

“What’s _this_ form?”

“Umm, new thing. For _you_ to evaluate how far your last action plan did in fact demonstrate your knowledge, understanding and skills, and how efficiently and effectively.”

“I’m box ticking _myself_? I wrote all this in my report!”

“This is the more streamlined version, adhering more uniformly – no pun intended! – to the criteria. Everyone will be using these, ensuring tighter standardisation and comparison across Met boroughs. It also has a section for self-reflection, any changes you would make in retrospect.”

“Why?”

“This will feed into the scheme, shaping future users’ realistically achievable expectations and objectives.” Her smile was tight, not so bright. She knew she was bloody pushing it.

“I’m double evaluating my own hoop making and jumping.” This was a mutter.

“I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, me too.” A softer mutter. He took up his pen, and silence reigned in the small room, but sounds carried from across the corridor.

“Now, we know you’re upset about your little friend, laddie,” he heard Peters say. “School mate, was he?”

Lestrade couldn’t hear any answer, but he heard Dave say, “Oh, course not. You’re at _private_ school, aren’t you. Our mistake,” and Lestrade realised two things. One, that the men were speaking up for the benefit of listeners, and two, they were ‘interviewing’ the kid letter writer, the one who’d been writing in about that schoolboy’s death at the swimming competition.

“So how do you know him, then, Carl?”

Again, couldn’t make out any reply.

“Of, know _of_ him. I see.” He suddenly hated whichever Dave it was.

“We’re from the same area.” This new voice…much younger, and it went up and down in pitch during the reply. He’d have a deep voice one day. Lestrade was able to hear the kid now as he was speaking louder, trying to assert himself in the face of the unfriendly reception.

“You’re from _Brighton_ , then, are you? Just, you don’t seem to have the accent. So, sonny, first time up in the old smoke, is it?”

Simmons sniggered and beckoned…was that Hardy? over, pointing inside the room.

“The, the same county, I mean.” The poor lad sounded flustered. “I read about him. We were told about him, an example to us, you see. He was a champion swimmer; he wouldn’t just drown like –”

“Brighton’s in _East_ Sussex, isn’t it, lad? You from East Sussex, is it?”

“No. West Sussex.”

“What?”

“West…Sussex.”

“Where?”

“West…Sussex.”

Oh, the slow delivery. The poor sod had a bit of a speech impediment and it seemed he’d figured out they were getting him to repeat words with s sounds in. Not that hard to have figured out. The sniggering from outside the door was a bit of a giveaway. _Morons_.

“Course you’re from _West_ Sussex.” The other Dave, the one with a whole sack of King Edward’s on his shoulder, couldn’t contain himself and strolled into the interview room. “Midhurst, isn’t it?”

They must know that from his letters, thought Lestrade, catching the odd word of their comedy ensemble act, such as polo tournaments, sailing, green belt, property values, all of which revealed their attitude towards the more affluent class the kid was from. He snorted at the expression _well-heeled_. Who even said that, these days? The poor boy most likely wouldn’t know what it meant.

“Excuse me?” Vanessa was finishing her annotating of his careful pages of report.

“Nothing. Sorry. Actually, I’m just going to get some water. Bit of a tickle. Would you like a glass?”

“Erm, yes, Thanks.” Obviously no category for that. Maybe he was supposed to have said he’d be needing one, filled in a form for it beforehand.

“Midhurst…Midhurst…why do I know that name? Oh yeah. That newspaper called it the prettiest village in England, didn’t it?” Simmons couldn’t resist, entered the room. Entered the fray, the fun.

“I…I don’t know.”

Lestrade couldn’t see much, in the interview room, maybe a flash of dark hair as a head turned from one standing man to another.

“But you read what I said, about his shoes?”

“His what, son?”

“Th-shoes!” This was a near-cry. “His shoes! They were missing! Why?”

“Someone must’ve nicked ’em, son. It’s a tough old world, outside private school and the grounds of the manor house. The moat. The real world’s full of naughty people.”

“Tut tut,” added Hardy, aptly named, built like a brick shit house, coming in and standing cross-armed.

“Hey.” Lestrade nodded at O’Neil, the only one left outside the room. “Go easy on the kiddy, yeah?”

“God almighty! It’s only a bit of a laugh,” answered the sergeant.

“You get that already, with his letters, I’d have thought. No need for a live show.” Lestrade had to return to his own interview. Just as Vanessa tucked a limp lock of hair behind her ear and started in on how his leadership and command skills hadn’t really been showcased by his last set of objectives, and she shouldn’t really be saying this but he would be seen in a better light if he used the scheme to pursue a specific area of interest and broaden his career horizon by returning to his degree, he heard the kiddish voice pipe up, “I think he was murdered!” before the room broke down into fits of laughter.

Vanessa had to raise her voice to spout clichés such as continued professional development vs. self-development and potential vs. performance, but it was still tough for her to compete with the male voices from across the corridor cracking up as they competed to chip in, “What, stop him winning, yeah?” and “God, Brighton, full of gangsters still, is it?” and, “Got in above his head, did he?”

At, “Well, Carl’s sleeping with the fishes now,” he heard the noise of a chair scraping back and then saw a smallish figure push out of the room into the corridor, heading for reception.

“Excuse me,” he said, rising from his chair and heading after the boy, no clear idea why or what for. “Hey, you,” he called up the expanse of corridor. “Kid, hang on.”

The figure stiffened and paused. Lestrade advanced, catching up. He saw the head turn almost to the wall, preventing him seeing…anything, and heard a hiccupping, sniffing sound. _Oh._

“Here.” He passed his handkerchief over a thin shoulder, into the boy’s line of vision. A slim hand snatched at it, and the head full of very black short-clipped curls dropped down on its shoulders. PC Lestrade approached the front of the kid and observed, and saw a somewhat gangly eleven or twelve-year-old in black trousers, new, a new white shirt – a school shirt – and a plain tie and dark blue blazer. The tie was a little big and the blazer much too big. Neither was his. Oh. Lestrade’s heart stuttered, much as the lad had done under the meanness and targeting of the men, as he realised the kid hadn’t wanted to wear his school blazer and tie to go up to town, to go to a police station, so had borrowed some ‘smart’ clothes. His brother’s? Cousin’s? God.

And the small form was practically vibrating with pent-up emotion, giving off sparks, radiating some strange aura that people couldn’t help reacting to, although Lestrade hoped it wasn’t always as negatively as those oafs back there had done. As Lestrade watched, the boy forced himself to still and then stood rigid, daring anyone to get close to him. But, oh, making Lestrade long to. Lestrade clasped his arms behind his back, because you couldn’t reach out and hug people who’d come in with a complaint. Not even a kid. Not even a lonely, scared…

“Thank you. I have allergies.” The words emerged thickly from behind the white cotton shield. What could be seen of the lad’s face showed it to be red, not surprisingly, after all that, although his hands were pale.

“Different pollen here in London, to Sussex,” offered Lestrade. “I was sniffly when I first came here from down west.”

“Yes.” The kid’s voice was still a bit shaky, and still a little uneven. It was still breaking, and probably cracked and shot up in the middle of sentences. It wasn’t an easy time, for a lad. He wasn’t some jolly, hearty know-it-all, practicing for when he spent his later years writing letters of complaint to newspapers and shops and services. No; he was highly strung and heavily invested in this matter.

Lestrade looked down at him, at the top of his recently shorn hair. He could see the nape of the kid’s neck, and…remains of black streaks, splodges. Hair dye. Inexpertly applied hair dye. Lestrade put that together with the overlong and turned-up trousers, the still-stiff school shirt, the kid’s age, and asked, his voice thickening in his throat, “So. New school. Boarding school? Is it as awful as they say?”

The kid went completely still at this, as if weighing Lestrade’s words, their content and form, against those he’d had meted out to him earlier.

“I hated going to big school after the local infant and junior,” Lestrade continued. “Even hated walking there and everything. Can’t imagine having to live there.”

“I’m a weekly boarder. It’s just prep school, to prepare me for boarding school when I’m thirteen. But it’s…” He was hesitant, guarded, still looking at the floor and covering his face, turning each word over before he said it, reluctant to give ammunition. “I preferred primary school.”

A wave of shame drenched Lestrade that his brethren’s treatment that had done this, created his suspicious child, hesitating before speaking, trying not to utter anything which could be flung back at him. Common sense and understanding of the world dragged him from the brink. No; couldn’t be just them. He caught a glimpse of a strawberry blond eyebrow, and knew, just knew, the awful school with its gangs and cliques and distrust and fear of anything, anyone different, and particularly the relentless teasing of a red-head, a ginger, a coppertop, had made this kid dye his hair dark – and seemingly before he’d started there, so a pre-emptive measure, as if he’d seen someone go through it and had taken steps accordingly.

But worse, it had also made him close in on himself, start building a wall. It was fragile, now, but he was young. By adulthood, it would be well-nigh impenetrable.

Lestrade hoped he wasn’t staggering under the sudden, swift and strong desire he felt to hurt anyone who’d caused the kid such anguish, his own fellow officers amongst them. Someone had come to them, expecting, if not help, then to be listened to, to count. Instead –

“Well, you know, some people, they’re –”

“Idiots. Imbeciles. Cretins.”

“ _Misguided_.” Lestrade put as much conviction in that as he could muster. It wasn’t much. “Like –”

“Those.” The hanky came away a little as the boy poked a fine-boned hand back in the direction he’d come.

  
“I’m sorry.” It was all he could say, and it was nothing. No help at all. He added, “If there’s anything I can do…” Yeah. Like what? And how?

  
The boy pulled the hanky down a little, and Lestrade stared transfixed at the strange eye regarding him. Blue, no; silver-blue, no; sea-green-blue: whatever, its force and power hit him, _pierced_ him. The kid straightened up, his head back and tilted slightly to one side as he regarded Lestrade like a specimen or a curio he’d come across in the course of his studies or research.  
And that attitude, and the kid’s now more composed posture and bearing reminded him of another kid, from back home, but a little kid, so one of his cousins, maybe, or one of his friends’ brothers, more likely, but someone absorbed in his own world, lonely maybe, with no one capable of engaging with him, but still safe in the cocoon of childhood, not isolated and scared at approaching adolescence and life and –

  
“I’m right, you know, constable. About Carl Powers. I’m right.”

  
“I…bet you are.” Lestrade spoke slowly. He hadn’t even got a good look at the lad, but he was feeling the extraordinary intelligence and probably even genius that radiated from the strange presence in front of him. It left him humbled.

  
“Ahem? May we conclude? Is something wrong?” Vanessa. He turned to signal two minutes to her, and when he turned back, the boy was walking away, slowly, stiffly, determinedly. To…whatever life had in store for him. Lestrade stared and hurt, almost, feeling the loss of that strange energy, that overwhelming certainty and hard, fierce conviction. He felt crushed by the weight of guilt that he hadn’t, that he couldn’t… Well, maybe there was something he could do. He pushed his way back through his coworkers.

  
“Vanessa.” He didn’t even take his seat again in the room. “We both know I’m ready for a step up.” He used the jargon ruthlessly. “We also both know I’m not in this for the accelerated promotion. I’m not some glory hound. I want to make a difference. I want…things to be different. That’s not happening here. I’m not doing that here. I used the core policing skills I learnt in training much more as a probationer than now, for God’s sake.”

  
“Well, that’s –”

  
“The targets have changed on this high potential course. You know that. The focus now is on promoting under-represented groups, those traditionally disadvantaged by ethnicity, gender, life advantages, age, even. It’s not so much about merit but fitting the profile they’re currently spotlighting. Okay, I had a rough home life, maybe, but I’m not gonna go back and get a degree just to fit into some quota somewhere. Not even to get ahead. And I’ve had it with being fobbed off and strung along just because I joined the scheme before its focus shifted. I’m tired of waiting for my moment, to be counted in.”

  
“So you’re leaving?” She was confused. So was he.

  
“In a way. I’m making my own way in. I’m applying to join the CID. The Criminal Investigation Department. As you say, I’m bright, have no trouble with the courses and training. I want to actually start doing something. Making a difference. To someone, somewhere.” He smiled at Vanessa, this time with genuine feeling, with hope, with energy, with enthusiasm. “I reckon I’ll make a good detective.”

 

  
“I'm waiting for my moment to come  
I'm waiting for the movie to begin  
I'm waiting for a revelation  
I'm waiting for someone to count me in.”

_Spiralling_ , Keane.


End file.
